Submitting Crossbill Records to NESBR

I had the pleasure on Monday 1st October of attending a talk on " The Crossbills of Scotland" by Ron Summers as part of the winter talk season organised by Aberdeen SOC branch. A very professional and informative presentation by RSPB Scotland's Chief Scientist and it was very well attended and received by the attending members.

Then....the questions ! Invariably, one questioner got on to "can I, a birder, identify Crossbills in the field with any certainty" ? Well, of course, by using sound recording equipment and producing sonagrams was Ron's response. And then the questioner raised the issue about how, in our local bird report (The North East of Scotland Bird Report), especially the latest one, that it seemed to be "only one individual [me] going around with recording equipment and getting records accepted", and what is the point of submitting any records ! For those who don't know I write the species accounts for NESBR and have done since 2004. Well, I have no idea who this guy was, but I can fully sympathise with his dilemma and the point he made. I politely pointed out that this was not actually the case - records for Common Crossbill were accepted (though as a side note perhaps they shouldn't be as they could potentially be confused with Scottish) and that the large-billed records were accepted per the recommendations in Martin Collinson's crossbill paper in the 2002 NESBR, basically advising that, in order to differentiate with any confidence, 'Large-Billed' Crossbill records for NESBR should be submitted with acoustic or biometric evidence.

As I consider myself a reasonable open minded guy who listens to criticsim, and the fact that feathers are apparently getting ruffled over this, a few points to clarify the situation:

1) We do receive 'non-verified' Scottish/Parrot Crossbill records each year for NESBR and these are very welcome and are actually still very important whether they make the publication or not. They remain 'on file' in the database and are a record of Crossbill sp. for any future researcher or project.

2) The Scottish and Parrot records/sightings that are published are accurate with regards to the current taxonmic criteria and nomenclature. I would think this was desireable/preferable for those who might want to see them or know where they occur. A few of the locations are 'vague' to protect important and sensitive breeding sites and Ringing Stations used by members of Grampian Ringing Group. This is actually standard BTO practise when submitting sensitive data, and if it offends people then I apologise for this inconvenience. Trapping sites have been compromised by photographers, incuding one of my own, so we reserve the right to slightly supress this info. It is not too difficult to read between the lines though, and with a bit of research it should put you in touch with your target species !

3) In all the years of compiling the species accounts for NESBR I have never received an accompanying sonagram, audio file or biometric (including colour ring bird sighting). If I did then these records could be considered pending whether the site is 'sensitive' (c.f 2 above).

I should add that I do get sent sonagrams and audio files, usually from birders South of the border. I always respond to these and help as best I can. One of the most memorable was a birder who was a friend of a NESBR colleague who managed to record "new" Scottish calls at Linn of Dee last year. I have lost all that info due to a Window's Live crash but will contact the friend who lives in Aberdeen and will incude it for the 2011 report.

4) Without sounding like I am blowing my own trumpet, because believe me I am not, if you read the Crossbill accounts prior to 2004 there are often very few records at all nor very much substance. None are 'verified'. Merely stating a fact.

5) I have written under three Editors, I hope they don't mind being listed: Paul Baxter, Ian Francis and currently Nick Littlewood. All absolutely first rate experienced birders and all have been supportive of this approach with Crossbill accounts and I was asked by Paul back in 2004 to do the species accounts as I was doing a lot of work on crossbills in terms of ID via calls.

This said, if there was consensus to include 'non-verified' records, either at editorial level or via public demand, then I could do this. Personally, I only see the point of this with regards a particularly interesting record or in a 'slow year'.

So, in response to the gentleman from Monday night what can local birders do to provide more information for their NESBR Crossbill records ?

In no specific order of importance:

1) Record the calls ! Even on a phone, camera, Mp3 - I have grapped identifiable sonagrams from such machines. The calls of birds as they fly is good as are any alarm (toop) calls they make. By ear is fraught with difficulty for all but experienced crossbill workers - EcC is easily confused with EcE and EcA is confusable with EcD. Flight calls, other than "new" Scottish would confuse most birders without adequate practice !

2) Record which tree species the bird(s) are feeding on. With a date, this can be helpful. The way the crossbills "work" the cones can tell a lot, but some people put too much generalisation in to this - it depends on the status of the cone (green or hard) and the time of year.

3) Are there "streakie" juvenile birds present with adults ? If so are they dependent or feeding by themselves ? Streakie juvs from Oct through to March would most likely be Common Crossbill progeny, though some attempt breeding in the spring. Parrot juvs can occur (in my experience) from April, but usually May through to August (second broods permitting).

4) Moult stages and plumage descriptions of adults and sub-adults. Many 1st or 2nd cy Common's males have "golden" plumage. Females can be distinguished by having dark centres to the crown feathers.

5) Photos, especially "face on" can be helpful as this shows the bill mass and width. Audio is more useful though.

6) If in flocks, the ratio of males to females can be helpful as more males suggests females are nesting, and the nesting periods are more distinct but overlap at the edges. However, it can often be difficult to see all the birds in a tree and females are harder to see and more 'cryptic' anyway.


I hope this helps local birders with their crossbill dilemma - if anyone has any questions or points to raise I can be reached via Bird Forum PM service. Please keep submitting the records as all are useful and important !

Mmm...Parrot Crossbill eyes up Norway Spruce.....so much for selective feeding !

"We'll Take The Oil, you can keep the Crossbill"

S'been a while, I know. Very busy with work and catching up with all my crossbill data as the massive write up of all my data over the last 8 years continues. I am also digistising the remainder of Alan Knox's Crossbill Recordings ( from 1/4 inch tape !) after Magnus Robb kindly provided the first batch. These also need analysed...then collated with all my stuff to provide a 30 plus year call lexicon for Deeside. It's all exciting stuff and there will be a few twists.........

To keep all crossbill addicts going meantime here is a wing moult pic of a rather lurvley second calendar year male Common Crossbill from Finzean in Deeside:

Note the old greater coverts (fringed with buff edges), old tertials and pretty trashed outer primaries.

Stay tuned, more to come on calls, biogeography, ecology and what Devo Max and Independence will mean for the Scottish Crossbill  (EDIT content removed to avoid offence to those of a weak disposition..apparently).
Lindsay

Scottish Crossbill, 19th April 2009

A retrospective example of a genuine Scottish Crossbill to compensate for all those published pictures of Parrot Crossbills on the web and publications. Taken with Nikon D300 and Nikon 300mm f4 lens, upper Deeside Spring 2009.

© Lindsay Cargill 2009

Common Crossbill Calls and Dragonflies, Summer 2011

Been a while but have been really, really busy with work and other commitments - apologies to regular LF readers who may have missed their fix of Crossbill nonsense.

In June I was lucky enough to spend a week over Glen Affric/Beinn Eighe way, primarily to look for Odonata but of course I was on the look out for Crossbills and had recording equipment with me. Turned out to be a really bad year for dragonflies - even seing a couple of Large Reds was a welcome sight some days. That said, in the end the only target species we missed that way was White-faced Darter, but we picked them up at a reliable site in Abernethy on the way home. Dragonfly highlight was Azure Hawkers at Loch Maree:

And even some blue form Azure Dragonfly females:

And a 'blue' form female and male together so you can see the difference (female on left):

There were actually several of these blue form females at this site and we did wonder if it was a result of the particularly cool Summer we had been having up till that point - to date it has been the worst Summer I can recall, winds and wet weather have made it very difficult to do any serious ringing on my days off which has been really frustrating. It is worth pointing out that at this site we had blanked Azures on two previous visits - the day we got them in good numbers was sunny and warm.

Quite a lot of these going around:

And another highlight, Northern Emerald:

I had flocks of Common Crossbills every day arounf the Beinn Eighe Visitor Centre and surrounding woods. Many juveniles were present and the birds were feeding on Scots Pine. Regular reader will already know of my concern at the interpretation of certain crossbill flight calls and here is a good example from Beinn Eighe:

There is a juvenile begging call in there ( "teet-ow") but look at the adult flight call and how it 'morphs'. At the far left it almost resembles classic published Scottish Flight Call (fc3) with its extra trialing component. Then the extra component disappears and the second call in is a typical Fc1 ( choopy or parroty variant as I call them) but the last 4 fcs all have that quite strong trailing component ala Scottish Crossbill, and which give the call a flutey quality when appraising them aurally. These birds were definitely Common Crossbills - I had a really good chance to examine their plumage, body proportions and bill structures.

The flock flying off (14 birds) and clear Fc1 (parroty variants):

On the way home we discovered a really big feeding flock of Common Crossbills at Dinnet in Deeside. These too were feeding on Scots Pine. And, another "morpher":

This bird is a Fc1 Common Crossbill. But, how many would classify it as a Parrot on the second, third and fourth calls ? How many would classify it as a Scottish on the last call ( a two syallable structure) ?

This sequence adds in a variant Crossbill call I have been recording since last year:

The third call in from the left ( and replicants at the end of the sequence) looks like a Fc1B (or parakeet)type on the sonagram, but aurally they sound very like Fc4 (or glip) type Fc's ( due to the higher frequenct trailing tail). The corresponding Ec does seem to be EcB so I am classifying them as 1B types but aurally they really are like Fc4's ! To me 1B "parakeets" sound really "cheepy" whilst these jobbies sound quite "clippy", a big difference. I don't think it is safe to assume these ones above are "parakeet" types, vocally.

A "real" glip to compare, from lower Deeside 31st July 2011:

And on the same day a Fc1 with extra component (ala Scotbill ???):

I am pretty sure that Crossbills add these 'artifacts' as a result of their double syrinx - they can produce more than one note at a time and thus can easily produce two different notes at two different times as above ( I think it may be a 'resonance' of the first note through the second chamber of the syrinx, exaggerated when calling particularly strongly - but this is just a hunch). I am prety sure that in the lexicon of published data this call might have been good for Scottish......

If anyone wants copies of the sonagrams then just ask - don't copy and fob off as your own please !


© Lindsay Cargill 2011

Birdwatch Crossbill Article....The Truth Is Out There ?

As a subscriber to Birdwatch and as someone who was consulted by David Callahan for his excellent article on Crossbill Taxonomy last year I read with interest the piece “Crossbills: New Challenges” by Andy Stoddart in Issue no.228. As a ringer and researcher spending much of my spare time studying the crossbills of NE Scotland some of the content contained in the article raised certain issues with me and there are also parts of the article that I feel are worth further comment. Firstly, I must state that I have every respect for Mr. Stoddart as an author and as respected and experienced birder whose all round experience is clearly extensive and not open to question, however I do know Crossbills very well so I hope my comments are received constructively and in the good faith that they are offered. My main reason for writing this response is that possibly up to 100 times more people will read Mr. Stoddart’s Birdwatch article than ANY scientific paper on Crossbill research, therefore I feel it is important that the facts and information are presented clearly and responsibly and that any speculation or personal hypotheses are also made clear and also in context.


Mr. Stoddart raises the point that the movements of our native birds “are not fully documented, notably the extent to which Scottish and Parrot Crossbills may wander from their breeding areas”. This is not true for Scotland, which is where these birds are resident, as RSPB have conducted two extensive surveys including a Scottish Crossbill Survey. On a similar point later in the article it is claimed that crossbills have been trapped in England during the irruption of 1990-91 that had measurements that “fell well within the range of Scottish Crossbill”. Whilst this may be true there are two factors worth considering and adding as caveats; first, that individual observer bill depth measurements can vary significantly potentially over-estimating the bill depth measurement, and that this, combined with the fact that some Common Crossbills can have long wings, could make large-billed Common Crossbills appear ‘Scottish’. Secondly, there is considerable variation in crossbill biometrics within ‘types’ and perhaps this was ‘exaggerated’ by a bigger sample size during an irruption. Another important point is that, as far as I know, the all important vocalisations were not taken on these birds. In other words to infer that these Crossbills could have been Scottish Crossbills is speculation without foundation - the article that was referenced actually suggested the opposite eg. that some birds in the study considered to have been Scottish on bill size may actually have been Common !

A 'big' Common Crossbill with Bill depth 11.2mm and wing 99mm....

Another assertion that I strongly disagree with is the statement that the work on crossbill vocalisations that has most relevance to British observers is that of Magnus Robb in particular in Dutch Birding (2000). Not to take anything away from the pioneering work then (and now) by Magnus I feel it was a bit of a major omission not to reference or include (or cite !) the extensive work carried out by Dr. Ron Summers on UK crossbill vocalisations and distributions, and in some cases abundance indices are available for all the various crossbill call ‘types’, though again with a particular focus on the Scotland - we are still part of the UK as far as I am concerned regardless of any recent Nationalist 'sucesses'. Ron and his colleagues also matched biometrics with vocalisations, something that Magnus didn’t and which in part may have accounted for some of the Parrot calls on the Dutch Birding CD then being mistakenly classified as Scottish Crossbill. To recommend this to British birders is therefore somewhat errant as presumably they will want to accurately ID both Parrot and Scottish Crossbills. The Chapter on Crossbills in the “Sound Approach to Birding” corrects the calls for Scottish and Parrot and would, in my opinion, be a more appropriate and accurate resource for a UK based birder than the Dutch Birding CD and is readily available. However, the Common Crossbill material in the Dutch Birding CD is indeed comprehensive and worth owning for this alone, and I concede this point.

Given that a major focus of the article was to be on Crossbill Identification I feel more could have been made concerning the differences between Scottish and Common and Parrot and Scottish but I understand that only a general overview was being given. The moult patterns of crossbills can at times be useful in diagnosis as can the temporal presence of streaked juveniles, though some overlap can occur. There were a few comments on Parrot Crossbill and Scottish Crossbill that I found puzzling and one which I challenge. Mr. Stoddart warns and fears of another irruption of Parrot Crossbill where he “[see’s] a future plagued by arguments over digital photographs and whether the bills ‘look big enough’.” Personally I don’t see a problem with this – it seems to happen with other rarities and anyway separation of Parrot Crossbill from Common Crossbill in any location is relatively straightforward in the vast majority of cases. However, regarding Scottish Crossbill I do not understand why a photograph of a perched Parrot ‘type’ bird was used in the final page montage. If one compares it to the Finnish Parrot directly to its left, to me the bill structures look similar – the Scottish bird has its head and bill tucked down which gives a different postural appearance. I am confident if it was in the same posture as its neighbouring photograph the bill structures would look very similar eg. it is a Parrot Crossbill. I questioned photographer on the identification of the bird in this photograph at the time (2007) on Birdguides when it was posted and received no reply as to the methods of its identification eg. presumably no sound recording. Given that, in my opinion, the vast majority of photographs of ‘Scottish Crossbills’ on the web and in even in some publications (some who should know better) appear to be Parrot type crossbills this action actaully compounds and perpetuates this situation further rather than improves it. I also think the rather flippant comment “this species [Scottish Crossbill] – assuming it is one” is very unhelpful and possibly  a tad cavalier. Scottish Crossbill IS regarded a full species by BOU following scientific research by several different workers - like particular laws some people may not like this fact but it is what it is and again the article perpetuates the scenario of “it’s not a real species” comments on the Birding ‘web’ which almost seem to ‘self prophesize’. When Mr. Callahan contacted me for his article I sent him several photographs of Scottish and Parrot Crossbills both ‘in hand’ and ‘in situ’. These birds were either identified by biometric measurements (and sightings of known colour ringed birds) and/or sonogram analysis of flight/alarm call and thus have some provenance regarding speciation. I would have been happy for any of these to be used in the present article by Mr. Stoddart and indeed could have offered more in the knowledge that an article can cite such facts to thoroughly inform readers and birders. I was not contacted. There are no such facts or information provided for any of the photographs in the article so how do we know how these birds were identified ? This needs to change or the problems that Mr. Soddart indentifies will merely continue to be perpetuated.

On the subject of vocalisations, an area of particular interest to my own studies, I have to raise several points. The article raises the question of whether the key to Parrot Crossbill identification lies in the diagnostic recognition of its vocalisations. Well, this is certainly extensively documented so yes it is diagnostic. But as someone who primarily studies Parrot Crossbills here in Scotland I take major issue (and even offence) at the statement “ ..but few-if any- British birders will be well practised in this art”. As someone who can confidently (and accurately) classify crossbill calls to type or species by ear (where they are classified calls) I invite Mr. Stoddart to come out into the field with me some time to bear witness! Perhaps I wouldn't be regarded a 'birder' ? ! There is also another statement that perhaps shows a lack of understanding of the situation : “Following Robb’s elucidation of the different call types, it is clear that several of these at least are resident or reaching Britain, but a precise elucidation of their status remains a long way off”. Again, there are existing publications and articles which show distribution of Common Crossbill call types, origin of sampled birds using stable isotope techniques and there is work in the pipeline by myself and other workers concerning Common Crossbill call distribution and biometric classification.

A Crossbill being ringed and processed.......it is being done in UK, honest !

The last point, and arguably the most important, is that the article seriously underestimated the fact that there are already quite a lot of people in the UK sound recording crossbills, either seriously or casually. Two weeks ago I was sent a crossbill call recorded in Glenmore of a call 'type' that I hadn't seen before - sounded quite Scottishy but most likely a variant Parrot call (possibly even a bird call syncing to a Scottish mate - it looked like a blatant Parrot in the photo). This call was recorded by someone visiting the area on holiday from England. I receive many such communications and correspond with recordists as much as I can. Some of these correspondences are actually on this blog - I am not sure if Mr. Stoddart is aware of Loxia Fantastica, but 20 odd thousand other people are...........

New Scottish Flight Call......discovered by actually going out and looking !

So, whilst a potentially interesting opportunity to discuss the Loxia complex, for me the article was a bit of a disappointment and I say this as a fully paid subscriber to the magazine first and as a crossbill researcher second - it wasn't a case of "New Challenges" but rather "Old Hat" or "Business as usual" for some of us !